


The Pressure of Knowledge

by rei_c



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-04
Updated: 2006-06-04
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1287712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/rei_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a fleeting smile causes more than a fleeting response.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pressure of Knowledge

You notice her absently, the tone of her smile striking a similar chord in you as you nod back, gesture half-hidden by the pile of books in front of you. The rain continues falling outside, a few drops smacking the window you face and leaving trails of cold panic on the glass. Yet another lazy Saturday afternoon spent in the library, researching arcane pebbles of insight that few others would care to know about. The research is work, not entirely for your own personal pleasure, but you are so used to working and unused to recreation, and it has been so long since you remember doing things simply because you wanted to, for yourself and no other reason, that your work has become your life and your personal pleasure. The boys—your boys—are gone, and it is just you, her, and a random smattering of ash-faced people filling up the return trolleys and island tables with discarded texts. 

It has been a ritual for many weeks now, now that your boys have finally reached their age and realized that they cannot hang on your shoulders anymore. The practice of carrying them has made you strong, though, strong enough for the books which have taken the place of your boys. Books will never leave you, will never grow old and grow up, will never realize what has been there all along, will never move to the sun drenched wineries of Italy together, will never leave you behind in London with the chill of the early morning mist always seeping into your bones and never leaking back out.

Sometimes you wonder what her story is, why she sits barricaded behind walls of Latin texts two tables away, every Saturday that you are there. You wonder if she has been left by her boys or if she is hiding from her sisters, if her house has grown too loud for her to think or if the rooms she lives in are too silent for her to keep living. You wonder about her, but never ask, only nod your head in response to a smile that seems too eager to exist. 

Sunday you see her in Soho; Monday, as you walk into your favorite pub. Her reflection catches in the elevator glass on Tuesday, all brown curves and cinnamon eyes. The same image, on Wednesday, strolls around Trafalgar and laughs across the square at the tourists who ignorantly receive your scowls. By Thursday, you wonder if she is following you and on Friday, when your eyes close for sleep, her image is imprinted on the inside of your mind.   
She takes captive your dreams.

Within your mind she has shed her shyness, her smile is real when her eyes light upon you, not anxious to prove nor pasted on out of politeness. Her presence in your midnight visions is enough to make you do things you never imagined were possible. She does not speak, directing your words and actions with half-lidded glances and movements shadowed in the fog of her homeland, changing your essence by the smell of her, the sight of her, the taste of her. She is forceful but not demanding, loving but not needing. She rests her head on your shoulder like your boys used to do, but the weight is a welcome comfort. She is beautiful and flawless and perfect, and you wake up in tears at the punishment of reality. 

Saturday arrives like an uninvited visitor and you choose not to pass the afternoon surrounded by dusty old manuscripts. Instead, you go for a walk along the Embankment, and buy some stale bread from an old woman who grins and calls you dearie. The ducks don’t notice the dryness of the crusts, or, if they do, they don’t complain. Your mind is packed with thoughts so tight that the pressure is almost unbearable. 

Nothing is resolved and when your boys call you that night, fresh from their red wine and lovemaking, you almost start to cry. You don’t let yourself, the familiar weight of protecting them settling on your shoulders again. Your boys eventually wish you _buona notte_ and hang up the phone, and you remember the phantom feeling of her cheek pressed against your collarbone. Once the tears begin falling, they won’t stop coming until you’ve drowned yourself three times and counting. 

You try to remind yourself that it was nothing, is nothing, only a smile and a dream and a little loneliness. 

When Saturday swings by again, you don’t return to the library or the Embankment, but sit at home with a carton of cigarettes and two four-packs of lager, watching old sitcom reruns and trying not to think of her teeth, white, shining, and even, or her smile, wide, open-lipped, with crinkles at the corners of her mouth, or her hands, perfectly manicured fingernails, smooth skin, permanent ink spot on the middle finger of her left hand. 

You walk into the library on Friday and she is not there. Turning over leafs of a long-forgotten text, your finger catches on the uneven edge. A small paper-cut, a drop of blood falls and stains your blouse before you nurse the wound; suck at it until the taste of copper hits the back of your throat. You stop thinking, return to mildewed pages, before your traitorous mind can wonder about the taste of her blood, if it would be the same metallic flavor or something exotic like her, something with the tang of mango or cinnamon. 

Your boys are getting worried, so they fly back to see you. They don’t stay long and you are sad to see them go, relieved at the same time. Their visit leaves you empty, for the comfort of their pressure has pushed her out of your mind. 

She is not there the Saturday you eventually go back to the library, her table possessed by someone else, by someone boring and ordinary and normal. She is never there again, nor on any of the days that you casually drop by. You are relieved to have your life back, sad at the same time. Hollow, in an acceptable way, freed to have your own dreams again. Your own fantasies, except sometimes there lurks a hint of the mango taste of her blood or the cinnamon smell of her eyes and sometimes, in your dreams, you wonder.


End file.
